The Story of Linux: Commemorating 20 Years of the Linux Operating System

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The Story of Linux (On the occasion of its 20th Anniversary)Our story begins 20 years agoBoris Yeltsin was sworn into office, Jay Leno replaced Johny Carson on the Tonight Showand cell phones where really, really big. It was August of 1991 and a 20 year old computer science student named Linus Torvalds sat down at hiscomputer in Helsinki to post what is now one of the most famous entries in computing history. "Hello everybody out there... I'm doing a (free) operating system(just a hobby, won't be anything big and professional like gnu) …it probably will never support anything other than AT-hard disks since that's all I have"Well, word of Linus' open source project soon spread around the globeand developers from all over contributed their code. Linus named his OS kernel Linux and chose a penguin as its mascotafter a little incident at the zoo. He soon made a very important decision that would shape Linux's future, just as much as the technologyHe chose the GPL license, created by a visionary named Richard Stallman. The Linux kernel, along with the GPL license and other GNU components revolutionized the computing industrywith a few very simple, yet very important freedoms:The freedom to use the software for any purpose. The freedom to change the software to suit your needs. The freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, andthe freedom to share the changes you've made. These radical ideas fueled its spread around the worldand somewhat paradoxically its rise from a hobbyist experiment to the foundation of a large and thrivingcommercial ecosystem. Companies built businesses around Linux. In 1999 Red Hat's stock tripled as it became the first Linux company to go public. That same year IBM spent a billion dollars to improve and advertise Linux. [Background: "Does he have a name?" "His name is Linux"]Soon Linux was knocking out industry heavy weights, and fueling the rise of the internet with its FreeSoftware. In short: Linux revolutionized computing. But whenever something is this disruptive there's bound to be competitive crossfire. But Linux not only survived, it thrived. Today the kernel development community numbers in the thousands, with hundreds of companiescollaborating on Linux development. Every three months another version of Linux is released. So, where is Linux today? Running in 75% of stock exchanges worldwide andpowering the servers that deliver Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Google. You use Linux literally every time you surf the Internet. It's in your phone, in your TV, running 95% of supercomputers andin many of the devices you use every day. Linux is everywhere. And the Helsinki-based promgrammer who started it all? He orchestrates this worldwide army of developers from his home office in Portland, Oregonas a Fellow at the Linux Foundation. As we celebrate 20 years of Linux, we can all see ourselves in its story. Thank you for being a part of its first 20 years.